3O L I V E R D O U B L E A N D M I C H A E L W I L S O N

Brecht and cabaret

One of the most popular anecdotes about Brechtrsquos early years in Munichinvolves a significant encounter with the popular comedian Karl Valentin(1882ndash1948)

In October 1922 following on from the success the previous month of thepremiegravere of Drums in the Night at the Munich Kammerspiele Brecht wasappointed to the dramaturgical team of the theatre and was immediatelygiven the task of rewriting and adapting Marlowersquos Edward II The writingtook place over the winter of 19223 but the eight-week rehearsal periodthen the longest in the Kammerspielersquos history did not start until January1924 In one of his conversations with the essayist and critic WalterBenjamin on 29 June 1938 Brecht told the story of how lsquothe idea of EpicTheatre first came into his headrsquo at one of these rehearsals

The battle in the play is supposed to occupy the stage for three-quarters of anhour Brecht couldnrsquot stage manage the soldiers and neither could Asya [Lacis]his production assistant Finally he turned in despair to Karl Valentin at thattime one of his closest friends who was attending the rehearsal and asked himlsquoWell what is it Whatrsquos the truth about these soldiers What about themrsquoValentin lsquoTheyrsquore pale theyrsquore scared thatrsquos whatrsquo The remark settled theissue Brecht adding lsquoTheyrsquore tiredrsquo Whereupon the soldiersrsquo faces werethickly made up with chalk and that was the day the productionrsquos style wasdetermined1

A few years later Brecht himself wrote a version of the same story in TheMessingkauf Dialogues lsquoWhen the Augsburger was producing his first playwhich included a thirty minutesrsquo battle he asked Valentin what he ought todo with the soldiers ldquoWhat are soldiers like in battlerdquo Valentin promptlyanswered ldquoWhite Scaredrdquo rsquo (pp 69ndash70)

There are certainly some minor discrepancies between the two versions ofthe story but what is strikingly similar about them is that the apparentlyobvious observation which Valentin made ndash that the soldiers are scared andtherefore lsquopalersquo or lsquowhitersquo ndash led to the theatrically radical decision to whiten

40

Cambridge Collections Online copy Cambridge University Press 2007use available at httpswwwcambridgeorgcoreterms httpsdoiorg101017CCOL0521857090003Downloaded from httpswwwcambridgeorgcore Open University Libraryy on 13 Jan 2017 at 103142 subject to the Cambridge Core terms of

the soldiersrsquo faces with thick obvious make-up There is quite a leap of theimagination from that observation to that decision and it is not clearwhether Valentin specifically suggested white make-up or whether Brechtthought of it himself in response to his comment

Either way though the significance of the story is that Brecht was facedwith a theatrical problem over which he had been unsuccessfully deliberat-ing for some time and that Valentin provided the solution Even if Brechtcame up with the white make-up himself it was his familiarity withValentinrsquos work that allowed him to see how Valentin himself would havesolved the problem in his own performances Indeed photographic docu-mentation of Valentin in performance indicates that he did indeed use make-up and prosthetics in a similar way ndash the actual make-up (or false nose ormoustache) was often outlandish in appearance but applied with simplicityand restraint and perhaps more significantly used to indicate the social atti-tude of the character (for example a wild-haired wig for artistic genius oroutrageous whiskers for an old-fashioned militarist)

Brecht liked this grotesque stagecraft and commented in particular aboutthe fact that Valentinrsquos stage partner Liesl Karlstadt (1892ndash1960) wouldoften play male characters describing her as lsquoa popular woman comedian whoused to pad herself out and speak in a deep bass voicersquo2 The idea of cross-casting appealed to Brecht because he saw it as a kind of alienation devicearguing that if a woman plays a man we realise lsquothat a lot of details which weusually think of as general human characteristics are typically masculinersquo3

One of the remarkable features of the incident at the Edward II rehearsalis the fact that Valentin was present at all Karl Valentin was arguably theforemost German comedian of his generation and certainly the most suc-cessful cabaret performer in Munich during the opening decades of the twen-tieth century He was Brechtrsquos senior by sixteen years and by the time he andBrecht first met4 he already had behind him a decade-long highly successfulcareer It is therefore difficult to understand the attraction to Valentin of afriendship with the young student Brecht especially given the comedianrsquoswell-documented antipathy towards both the theatre and intellectualism

Here was an unlikely alliance with a young playwright from the legiti-mate theatre taking advice from an established popular comedian from theillegitimate stages of the cabaret and the Volksaumlngerlokale This representsa paradigm shift in Brechtrsquos thinking about theatre As is often the case todayviewed against the aesthetic principles of classical theatre naturalism andexpressionism Brechtrsquos theories are difficult to comprehend fully but againstthe aesthetics of cabaret they become lucid and easily comprehensibleBrecht had been fascinated by cabaret for some time and was aware thatthere were aspects of the popular stage that he wanted to incorporate into

Brecht and cabaret

41

Cambridge Collections Online copy Cambridge University Press 2007use available at httpswwwcambridgeorgcoreterms httpsdoiorg101017CCOL0521857090003Downloaded from httpswwwcambridgeorgcore Open University Libraryy on 13 Jan 2017 at 103142 subject to the Cambridge Core terms of

oliver double and michael wilson

42

2 and 3 Karl Valentin in contrasting character make-up

Cambridge Collections Online copy Cambridge University Press 2007use available at httpswwwcambridgeorgcoreterms httpsdoiorg101017CCOL0521857090003Downloaded from httpswwwcambridgeorgcore Open University Libraryy on 13 Jan 2017 at 103142 subject to the Cambridge Core terms of

his own theatrical work but it is here for the first time that we see the begin-nings of a coherent aesthetic which would later be called lsquoepicrsquo The per-spective of cabaret allowed the theatre to cast social reality in a new sharperand ultimately more objective light

Brecht at the Wilde Buumlhne

Brechtrsquos interest in cabaret stemmed from being both a fan and a participantIt has been argued that he made only one appearance at an authenticcabaret5 In 1921 and 1922 the young playwright was dividing his timebetween Munich and Berlin and experiencing mixed fortunes The positiveslike winning the prestigious Kleist Prize were balanced by the failure of hisdirection of Arnolt Bronnenrsquos Vatermord (Patricide) at the experimentalJunge Buumlhne and being hospitalised for suspected tuberculosis due to under-nourishment

It was clearly a period of great financial uncertainty for Brecht and on23 December 1921 he records in his diary a visit to Trude Hesterberg (1892ndash1967)6 who in September of that year had opened the Wilde Buumlhne one ofthe foremost political cabarets in Berlin He made such a deep impression onthe assembled group that Hesterberg immediately booked him for six nightsfor a fee of 500 Marks Brechtrsquos debut took place in January 1922 and beganwith his singing lsquoApfelboumlckrsquo in a lsquosomewhat unorthodox and monotonousmannerrsquo7 for which he received muted applause He then began to sing lsquoTheLegend of the Dead Soldierrsquo which from the very beginning provoked rest-lessness among the audience By the time he got to the end of the second verselsquowild pandemonium broke out in the stallsrsquo and he was lsquohowled down by hisreactionary audiencersquo8 Apparently nobody had expected such a reactionwhich may have been due to a nationalistic crowd of visitors who were inBerlin for an agricultural show and had wandered into the Wilde Buumlhne insearch of a good night out Hesterberg brought down the curtain and WalterMehring was left to address the audience with the following prophetic wordslsquoLadies and Gentlemen that was a great disgrace but not for the poet butfor yourselves And one day you will boast that you were here this eveningrsquo9

Whilst this may have been Brechtrsquos first and last appearance on the Berlincabaret stage the experience did nothing to dampen his appetite for cabaretupon his return to Munich

Munich and Die rote Zibebe

When Brecht first arrived in Munich as a student in 1917 he was already agreat enthusiast for the popular performers he had witnessed at the annual

Brecht and cabaret

43

Cambridge Collections Online copy Cambridge University Press 2007use available at httpswwwcambridgeorgcoreterms httpsdoiorg101017CCOL0521857090003Downloaded from httpswwwcambridgeorgcore Open University Libraryy on 13 Jan 2017 at 103142 subject to the Cambridge Core terms of

fairs in Augsburg notably the ballad singers with their illustrative placardsand declamatory styles of delivery Augsburg however was very differentfrom Munich Between 1882 and 1907 Munichrsquos population had doubled insize to 500000 (at the beginning of the nineteenth century it had been a mere30000) and almost half of the population were immigrants from the sur-rounding Bavarian countryside Furthermore Munich very much saw itselfas a centre for culture and art in opposition to the economic centre of BerlinThe city played host to among others Frank Wedekind Thomas andHeinrich Mann Arnold Zweig Johannes Becher Lion Feuchtwanger ErnstBarlach Oskar Kokoschka and Arnold Schoenberg In reality Munich wasa city of both artistic and political extremes This was the city that was brieflygoverned by a revolutionary Soviet government in the months following theend of the First World War and that was also the birthplace of HitlerrsquosNational Socialist German Workersrsquo Party (NSDAP) It was a haven for thebohemian and political literary cabarettists but turn-of-the-century Munichalso had 100 Volksaumlngerlokale venues for the more popular forms of enter-tainment where nearly 400 singers and comedians would ply their tradeamongst the noisy audiences of artisan working-class beer drinkers

Whilst Brecht only ever saw himself as a serious artist (with the usual pre-tensions of youth) he appears to have been an avid consumer of all that thecity had to offer Certainly by 1918 Brecht was already composing andsinging his own songs as well as singing those of in particular Wedekindbut he appears to have limited his performances to private gatheringsamongst his friends and informal playing in public houses

When Brecht resumed his studies in the summer of 1919 after complet-ing his military service as a hospital orderly in a VD clinic he became moreheavily involved in the cabaret scene often spending his evenings watchingValentin perform In October 1919 he performed with the comedian at theOktoberfest as well as writing five one-act plays which Voumllker describes aslsquopure Valentin in style grotesque pictures of everyday life with eccentricdialogue in which logic is stood on its headrsquo10 Of these Die Hochzeit(A Respectable Wedding) the only one to be performed in Brechtrsquos lifetimeis arguably the most interesting It tells of an impecunious newly-wed couplewho invite their friends and relatives to the wedding party at their flat whichis furnished with items that the husband himself has made The coupleproudly show off their new home but as the party progresses and the drinktakes effect the guests begin to fall out and piece by piece the furniturebegins to fall apart Finally the guests are sent home and the newly-wedsthrow themselves onto their bed which promptly collapses beneath them11

By the time that Brecht was expelled from the university for non-attendanceat the end of November 1921 he was dividing all his time between sitting in

oliver double and michael wilson

44

Cambridge Collections Online copy Cambridge University Press 2007use available at httpswwwcambridgeorgcoreterms httpsdoiorg101017CCOL0521857090003Downloaded from httpswwwcambridgeorgcore Open University Libraryy on 13 Jan 2017 at 103142 subject to the Cambridge Core terms of

on rehearsals at the theatre and visiting the cabaret His most significant directforay into the Munich cabaret scene occurred with his staging of Die roteZibebe at the Kammerspiele which opened on 30 September 1922 the dayafter the premiegravere of Drums in the Night There are several descriptions of theevent but most seem to be based on the account by Hanns Otto Muumlnstererwho attended the second performance of what he described as lsquoan attempt toexploit the theatrical space for a literary cabaretrsquo12 To begin with MaxSchreck in the character of Glubb the landlord of Die rote Zibebe the tavernin Drums in the Night introduced a series of performers who lsquostepped out ofcabins like puppetsrsquo13 Brecht himself appeared in the first of the two perfor-mances singing the songs which had failed so miserably in Berlin earlier in theyear There were also appearances by established cabaret performers likeKlabund and Joachim Ringelnatz as well as many of the actors from the playwho performed some of Brechtrsquos poems

The second half of the cabaret was given over to a performance of twopieces by Karl Valentin and Liesl Karlstadt The second of these was a newlywritten playlet Das Christbaumbrettl14 in which Valentin played the partof a father who has been sent out by his long-suffering wife (Karlstadt) fora piece of board to act as a stand for the family Christmas tree Valentinbrings home two long planks with which he proceeds to destroy the furni-ture as he attempts to bring them into the house and make them the rightsize By the end of the play there is complete chaos on stage with a host ofscreaming children (one of whom is played by a dwarf) and the arrival of achimney sweep (played by a giant) It is only then that Valentin realises thathe has forgotten to tear the dates off the calendar and it is not Christmas atall but the middle of summer It is of some significance that the scene isredolent of the domestic chaos depicted in Brechtrsquos earlier one-acter DieHochzeit

Other connections with cabaret

Whilst Brecht seems to have had no direct involvement in cabaret after 1922he retained close professional relationships with many cabaret performersand it is particularly interesting that he often turned to these rather thanclassically trained actors when casting his productions The cast of the pre-miegravere of The Threepenny Opera in 1928 included both Rosa Valetti(1876ndash1937) a singer who had made a name for herself on the Berlincabaret scene as the lsquomost expressive and politically uncompromising singerof the literary political cabaret of the twentiesrsquo15 and Kurt Gerron(1897ndash1944) one of Berlinrsquos biggest stars in the 1920s who made appear-ances in every major revue and cabaret of the time In spite of his riotous

Brecht and cabaret

45

Cambridge Collections Online copy Cambridge University Press 2007use available at httpswwwcambridgeorgcoreterms httpsdoiorg101017CCOL0521857090003Downloaded from httpswwwcambridgeorgcore Open University Libraryy on 13 Jan 2017 at 103142 subject to the Cambridge Core terms of

appearance at her Wilde Buumlhne Brechtrsquos relationship with Trude Hesterbergwas good enough for him to offer her the part of Widow Begbick in theBerlin premiegravere of The Rise and Fall of the City of Mahagonny in 1931

This propensity to cast actors with cabaret experience was something thatstayed with Brecht throughout his career Therese Giehse (1898ndash1975) whoworked with him on the Zuumlrich premiegravere of Mother Courage and who in1948 joined the permanent company of the Berliner Ensemble was a co-founder in 1932 of Munichrsquos political cabaret Die Pfeffermuumlhle Perhapsmost famously Ernst Busch (1900ndash1980) who was rehearsing as Galileo forthe Berliner Ensemble when Brecht died in 1956 and who had appeared inKuhle Wampe and the 1928 production of Threepenny Opera was perhapsbetter known for his membership of the communist cabaret groups DieWespen and later Die Bruumlcke Furthermore the relationship betweenBrecht and cabaret was two-way and various artistes including Kurt Gerronand Kate Kuumlhl sang his songs in their cabaret performances

One of the most fascinating of Brechtrsquos cabaret connections was the shortsilent film he worked on in February 1923 entitled Mysterien einesFrisiersalons (Mysteries of a Hairdresserrsquos Shop) The project came about asthe result of a delay in the start of rehearsals for In the Jungle of CitiesBrecht was to write the script and Erich Engel was to direct The film fea-tured a number of leading cabarettists with Valentin in the star role sup-ported by Karlstadt and the popular cabaret singers Annemarie Hase(1900ndash1971) and Blandine Ebinger (1899ndash1993) who was married to thecelebrated cabaret composer Friedrich Hollaender Some of the actors Brechtworked with at the time like Max Schreck Erwin Faber and Carola Neheralso appeared in key roles

It would seem that for Brecht the project was to be entirely experimentaland according to both Faber and Ebinger he never produced any of the scripthe had promised to deliver and instead simply had the actors improvise WhileValentin was left frustrated with the film Ebinger claimed that the entireproject was just a frivolous piece of fun lsquoI never heard anything about gettingmoney out of the film we didnrsquot ask for any Valentin just cut off Horwitzrsquoshead handed it to me and I danced around like a little Salomeacute it was alldone just for fun and laughsrsquo16 And yet in spite of the rather playful atmos-phere that ran throughout the making of the film there does seem to have beena seriousness to Brechtrsquos experimentalism According to Faber Brecht wasattempting to explore the possibilities for comic improvisation that he hadseen so skilfully executed on stage by Valentin and on the screen by Chaplinlsquo[H]e wanted us to improvise to improve the whole thing because he lovedthe improvisations of Valentin and Chaplin He must have thought ldquoThoseare similar comics arenrsquot theyrdquo So he made this filmrsquo17 Certainly the film was

oliver double and michael wilson

46

Cambridge Collections Online copy Cambridge University Press 2007use available at httpswwwcambridgeorgcoreterms httpsdoiorg101017CCOL0521857090003Downloaded from httpswwwcambridgeorgcore Open University Libraryy on 13 Jan 2017 at 103142 subject to the Cambridge Core terms of

no commercial success but its use of cabaret performance styles and its placewithin Brechtrsquos developing aesthetic are unmistakable

Cabaret structure

Although Brechtrsquos direct involvement with Karl Valentin ended when Brechtmoved to Berlin after the Kammerspielersquos 1923ndash24 season Brecht remainedin close contact with the Berlin cabaret scene and the influence of his for-mative years in Munich can be seen in the evolution of the guiding princi-ples of epic theatre If we do as Brecht did at the Edward II rehearsals in1924 and look at epic theatre through the prism of cabaret the influence ofthe latter on the former becomes evident

In terms of the way plays were constructed Brecht proposed the adoptionof an episodic structure which challenged the assumption that one thing nec-essarily follows on from another He opposed his epic theatre with lsquoeachscene for itselfrsquo to the lsquodramatic theatrersquo where lsquoone scene makes anotherrsquoand argued for lsquoa radical separation of the elementsrsquo (Brecht on Theatrep 37) How this worked in practice becomes clear from his description ofThe Threepenny Opera

Its most striking innovation lay in the strict separation of the music from allthe other elements of entertainment offered Even superficially this was evidentfrom the fact that the small orchestra was installed visibly on the stage For thesinging of the songs a special change of lighting was arranged the orchestrawas lit up the titles of the various numbers were projected on the screens atthe back and the actors changed their positions before the number began

(Brecht on Theatre p 85)

An eveningrsquos cabaret programme was organised in a similar fashion A seriesof stand-alone acts would be presented in such a way that though each per-formance was separate there was still a relationship thematic stylistic orotherwise between the disparate elements of the programme The role of theconfeacuterencier would be central to this providing interludes and introductionsto the acts to ensure the coherence of the whole That is to say that he opera-ted like the songs in a Brecht play or the Spruchbaumlnder (banners) used toannounce the action of a scene in advance to provide the linkage betweenthe individual scenes The confeacuterencier would also be responsible for pro-viding an objective commentary upon the acts highlighting their particularsignificance or relevance and advancing the argument contained thereinmuch as the songs and Spruchbaumlnder in Brechtrsquos plays do

The use of Spruchbaumlnder could have been inspired by Brechtrsquos love of earlysilent cinema resembling the written intertitles between scenes of the films

Brecht and cabaret

47

Cambridge Collections Online copy Cambridge University Press 2007use available at httpswwwcambridgeorgcoreterms httpsdoiorg101017CCOL0521857090003Downloaded from httpswwwcambridgeorgcore Open University Libraryy on 13 Jan 2017 at 103142 subject to the Cambridge Core terms of

but the case could easily be made that popular theatre forms such as thecabaret or the ballad singers with their illustrative placards were equallyinfluential in this respect Knowing what we do about the importance of the1924 production of Edward II in the development of the principles of epictheatre it is interesting that the local critics were particularly impressed bythe innovative approach of having lsquothe scene titles and dates announcedbefore each episodersquo in what Willett and Manheim describe as Brechtrsquoslsquoballad-like conception of the storyrsquo18

Brecht used careful stage groupings to give clarity to the narrative and par-ticularly the Gestus of the scene and the individuals within it their socialrelationships to each other and the action In this respect he was alsoshowing the influence of cabaret He called himself a lsquocopyistrsquo of Valentinrsquosstage groupings (Brecht on Theatre p 224) and the evidence for this can beseen in Das Christbaumbrettl which as Denis Calandra points out boastsarrangements strikingly similar to those used by Brecht in his 1931 produc-tion of Man is Man19

The production photos clearly show a careful grouping of the charactersValentin is centre stage holding the two planks which take up most of thestage and the other characters are bunched around the edge of the stage soemphasising the limitations of space within the lsquohousersquo However thecharacters are also arranged according to an aesthetic consideration The

oliver double and michael wilson

48

4 Valentinrsquos Das Christbaumbrettl in performance

Cambridge Collections Online copy Cambridge University Press 2007use available at httpswwwcambridgeorgcoreterms httpsdoiorg101017CCOL0521857090003Downloaded from httpswwwcambridgeorgcore Open University Libraryy on 13 Jan 2017 at 103142 subject to the Cambridge Core terms of

children are all grouped together on one side striking similar poses whilstthe giant chimney sweep stands in contrast on the opposite side of the stageIn addition Valentin and his planks separate the mother from the childrenseemingly drawing attention to the domestic chaos that he has createdHowever the characters are also arranged across the stage using its widthmore than its depth so that every character is visible to the audience in spiteof the crowded stage Photographs of group acts on cabaret stages show asimilar use of a linear arrangement of performers As with Brecht for thecabaret performer everything must be seen and nothing should be obscured

Songs and comedy

The influence of cabaret song on particular plays like The Threepenny Operaand Mahagonny is obvious but beyond this Brecht believed that there wassomething inherent in the music of cabaret which made it particularly suit-able for his work He argued that lsquoso-called ldquocheaprdquo music particularly thatof the cabaret and the operettarsquo is lsquogesticrsquo in that it lsquoallows the actor toexhibit certain basic gests on the stagersquo Serious music meanwhile lsquostillclings to lyricism and cultivates expression for its own sakersquo (Brecht onTheatre p 87)

The comedy of cabaret was another important influence One of the thingsthat must have drawn Brecht to Karl Valentin was the way the comic turnedthe conventional rules of language and logic inside out In his breakthroughroutine Das Aquarium for example Valentin tells the audience that in hishouse lsquotherersquos a staircase that goes up to the first floor and it also goes backdown again only itrsquos not the staircase that goes up wersquore the ones that goup on the staircase itrsquos just a figure of speechrsquo Later in the routine hesays that his goldfish had fallen onto the floor qualifying this by explain-ing lsquobecause in the room where the aquarium is wersquove got a floorrsquo20

This kind of comic incongruity exactly fits Brechtrsquos description of theVerfremdungseffekt as lsquoturning the object of which one is to be made awareto which onersquos attention is to be drawn from something ordinary familiarimmediately accessible into something peculiar striking and unexpectedrsquo(Brecht on Theatre p 143)

The connection between Valentinrsquos comedy and Brechtrsquos Verfremdungbecomes very clear in a gag in the film they made together Mysterien einesFrisiersalons At one point two characters fight a duel with swords Halfwaythrough therersquos an intertitle which reads lsquoKampfpausersquo (literally lsquofightbreakrsquo) They calmly sit down and have a break and one of them offers theother a light as they smoke cigarettes It is a classic Brechtian joke two typesof ordinary behaviour fighting and having breaks (and a real fight and

Brecht and cabaret

49

Cambridge Collections Online copy Cambridge University Press 2007use available at httpswwwcambridgeorgcoreterms httpsdoiorg101017CCOL0521857090003Downloaded from httpswwwcambridgeorgcore Open University Libraryy on 13 Jan 2017 at 103142 subject to the Cambridge Core terms of

a sporting event) are defamiliarised by having one incongruously applied tothe other It brings to mind Brechtrsquos acting exercises where the actors haveto play a scene in which two women calmly fold linen while feigning a lsquowildand jealous quarrelrsquo for the benefit of their husbands in the next room orlsquocome to blows as they fold their linen in silencersquo (Brecht on Theatre p 129)

Valentin was also keen on gags which broke the theatrical illusion andthere were some of these in the sketches he performed in Die rote Zibebe InDas Christbaumbrettl Liesl Karlstadt finishes a telephone call to Valentinwho has just arrived at the market and before she puts down the receivertherersquos a knock on the door and there he is back at home lsquoAh there you areIrsquove just been talking to you on the phone and here you are alreadyrsquo she sayslsquoYeah I just hung up and came right overrsquo he replies21 This sketch was pre-ceded by a piece in which Valentin rode around the stage on a penny-farthing It concluded with what was announced as lsquoa death-defying journeythrough dark and murky nightrsquo in which he rode through a paper bannerbearing the words lsquodark and murky nightrsquo22 It is not difficult to see whyBrecht liked this kind of thing or its connection with his theatrical theories

Cabaret performance

In The Messingkauf Dialogues Brecht makes a vital point lsquoOne shouldnrsquotoverlook the fact that itrsquos not the play but the performance that is the realpurpose of all onersquos effortsrsquo (p 74) This was certainly true of cabaret Greatwriters like Kurt Tucholsky Walter Mehring and Erich Kaumlstner may havecontributed excellent scripts but it was the moment of performance that wascrucial to cabaretrsquos success with its electric connection between performerand audience

Cabaret performers tended to work not by portraying characters with apsychological realism based on empathy and emotionalism but by appear-ing in the guise of their offstage self (or a persona based on it) and address-ing the audience directly As Trude Hesterberg put it lsquoThe impact of cabaretsongs comes especially from the personality who ldquoputs it acrossrdquorsquo23 One ofthe things that impressed Brecht so much about Valentin was that hiscomedy was based on his personality as it came across onstage lsquoWhen KarlValentin in some noisy beer hall or other performs with a deadly serious-ness against the chaotic noise of beer glasses singers and chair legs oneimmediately gets the impression that this man will not tell any jokes He ishimself a jokersquo With a deadpan style and a persona based on lsquocomposurestupidity and the pleasure of livingrsquo Valentin could lsquomake donkeys laughrsquoand reflect deeply on lsquothe inadequacy of all thingsrsquo Crucially he also rejectedlsquocheap psychologyrsquo24

oliver double and michael wilson

50

Cambridge Collections Online copy Cambridge University Press 2007use available at httpswwwcambridgeorgcoreterms httpsdoiorg101017CCOL0521857090003Downloaded from httpswwwcambridgeorgcore Open University Libraryy on 13 Jan 2017 at 103142 subject to the Cambridge Core terms of

Cabaret performers owed their success to those qualities which are sohard to pin down energy presence and charisma Brecht himself had hisfair share of these when he sang his songs His musical talents were rathermixed contemporary accounts suggest his guitar playing was basic instinc-tive and effective and recordings of his singing reveal a voice which was farfrom pretty Nonetheless the way he actually performed the songs washighly charismatic as Max Hohenester recalled lsquoAn irresistible forceemanated from the slight restless figure of the young Brecht He didnrsquotsing well but with infectious passion drunk on his own verses ideas andimages as other people are on wine and intoxicating his listeners as onlyyouth canrsquo25

Brechtrsquos singing could certainly make an impression His schoolmate andfellow medical student Otto Muellereisert said Brechtrsquos singing got himlsquoninety per cent of his womenrsquo26 More importantly it also got him hisbooking at Hesterbergrsquos Wilde Buumlhne When he arrived at her flat for hisaudition she was not overwhelmed by her first sight of him lsquoExcept forsome pimples on his face and long slender hands that stuck out of his jacketwhich was much too short there was nothing about him to make any specialimpressionrsquo However when he started to sing she was entranced lsquoAndthen in the melancholy November atmosphere of my rented middle-classflat the first bars of ldquoThe Dead Soldierrdquo and ldquoJosef Apfelboumlckrdquo rang outand Bert Brechtrsquos coarse voice cast a spell over it all rsquo27

Wedekind the performer

Just as Brecht could cast a spell over others so he was entranced by FrankWedekind It is well known that Brecht admired Wedekind but this was lessa cool intellectual appreciation more a kind of hot-blooded hero worshipThe two men actually met only once when Brecht engineered the exchangeof a few words He had arrived early for one of Wedekindrsquos performancesto find his idol nervously pacing between the seats as Hanns Otto Muumlnstererrecalled lsquoBrecht stepped out probably on purpose into the path of theoncoming Wedekind ndash who promptly ran straight into him ldquoI do beg yourpardonrdquo he said raising his hat and steamed on That at least was Brechtrsquosstory and he was quite pleased with himself for having managed to eliciteven this greeting from the great masterrsquo28

When the lsquogreat masterrsquo died in 1918 Brecht attended his funeral andwrote to Caspar Neher about it lsquoI even saw him in his coffin One of thebiggest surprises Irsquove ever had around his mouth he looked like a little boyGone were the self-satisfied precious line of the lips the surfeited cynicallookrsquo29 Shortly afterwards Brecht had his hair cut much shorter adopting

Brecht and cabaret

51

Cambridge Collections Online copy Cambridge University Press 2007use available at httpswwwcambridgeorgcoreterms httpsdoiorg101017CCOL0521857090003Downloaded from httpswwwcambridgeorgcore Open University Libraryy on 13 Jan 2017 at 103142 subject to the Cambridge Core terms of

the style he had admired in Wedekind The following year he named his firstson Frank in honour of his hero

There is no doubt that part of the appeal was the writing In 1912 Brechtrsquosfather had given him a copy of the Georg Muumlller edition of Wedekindrsquos com-plete works and by 1918 it was lsquonothing if not well-thumbedrsquo30 Wedekindrsquosinfluence is there in Brechtrsquos writing and it has been noted that Baal is akind of reworking of the Lulu plays31 Brecht also loved Wedekindrsquossongs and it is not difficult to see the connection between Wedekindrsquos lsquoDerTaumlntenmoumlrderrsquo (lsquoThe Aunt-Killerrsquo) in which a young man remorselesslymurders his aunt and steals her gold and Brechtrsquos lsquoApfelboumlckrsquo in which ayoung man kills his parents for no reason and continues living in the housewhile their corpses rot in the linen press However what really excited Brechtabout Wedekind was his performance As a young playwright Wedekindhad been fascinated by popular theatre He had become friendly with theclown W W Rudinoff worked backstage at circuses in Paris and attendedshows at the Middlesex Music Hall in London Then in 1901 he started toappear in cabaret a new type of theatre consciously modelled on popularforms like music hall He first appeared at the Elf Scharfrichter shortly afterits foundation in 1901 singing his own songs to his own accompaniment onthe guitar and lute He was an extremely effective cabaret performer with aharsh voice and a powerful stage presence and appearances at the ElfScharfrichter brought him much-needed money as well as kudos He con-tinued to sing in various cabarets on and off for the rest of his career

Brecht saw Wedekind perform on a number of occasions While a studentin Munich he attended seminars on theatre conducted by Artur KutscherWedekindrsquos friend and biographer Thus he gained some quite close contactwith his hero hearing him speak and sing at a farewell party given bymembers of the seminar He also saw Wedekind performing in cabarets likethe Bonbonniegravere acting in the plays he had authored and giving a readingof his final work Herakles Wedekindrsquos performance had a clear impact onBrecht It seems likely that he modelled his own singing style on that of hishero Certainly the description of Wedekindrsquos singing in the obituary hewrote ndash lsquoa brittle voice monotonous and quite untrainedrsquo ndash could equallywell apply to his own as heard on recordings of songs from The ThreepennyOpera Moreover Brechtrsquos writing on Wedekind pays far more attention tohis performance than to his plays He wrote passionately about his charismaand his performance energy lsquoNo singer ever gave me such a shock such athrill It was the manrsquos intense aliveness the energy which allowed him todefy sniggering ridicule and proclaim his brazen hymn to humanity thatalso gave him this personal magic He seemed indestructiblersquo He alsodescribed an intense connection with the audience lsquoHis vitality was his finest

oliver double and michael wilson

52

Cambridge Collections Online copy Cambridge University Press 2007use available at httpswwwcambridgeorgcoreterms httpsdoiorg101017CCOL0521857090003Downloaded from httpswwwcambridgeorgcore Open University Libraryy on 13 Jan 2017 at 103142 subject to the Cambridge Core terms of

characteristic He had only to enter a lecture-room full of hundreds of noisystudents or a room or a stage with his special walk his sharp-cut bronzeskull slightly tilted and thrust forward and there was silencersquo Perhaps mostimportantly Brecht noted that Wedekindrsquos lsquogreatest work was his own per-sonalityrsquo (Brecht on Theatre pp 3ndash4)

In any form of variety-type theatre the performerrsquos personality tends toform the basis of the act and when Wedekind began his cabaret career hisnotoriety meant that he had a ready-made persona Whereas other membersof the Elf Scharfrichter took on sinister stage names like lsquoDionysius Todrsquo(Death) or lsquoTill Blutrsquo (Blood) the scandalous content of Wedekindrsquos playsand a prison sentence for lese-majesty had made his surname intimidatingenough in its own right There was no apparent gap between the electrifyingperformer on the cabaret stage holding audiences rapt with murderoussongs and the offstage man Indeed Wedekind made efforts to maintain hisnotorious public image in his everyday life regularly asking young women

Brecht and cabaret

53

5 Frank Wedekind in 1910

Cambridge Collections Online copy Cambridge University Press 2007use available at httpswwwcambridgeorgcoreterms httpsdoiorg101017CCOL0521857090003Downloaded from httpswwwcambridgeorgcore Open University Libraryy on 13 Jan 2017 at 103142 subject to the Cambridge Core terms of

if they were still virgins and hiding ill-fitting dentures with a habitual teeth-baring leer

What makes Wedekindrsquos performance such an important influenceon Brechtrsquos ideas of theatre is that he not only appeared in cabaret butalso acted in his own plays Brecht loved Wedekindrsquos acting and wouldimitate his portrayal of Dr Schoumln in Erdgeist (Earth Spirit) He wrotethat his acting was technically weak but that it had a different kind ofpower

He was not a particularly good actor (he even kept forgetting the limp whichhe himself had prescribed and couldnrsquot remember his lines) but as Marquisvon Keith he put the professionals in the shade He filled every corner with hispersonality There he stood ugly brutal dangerous with close-croppedred hair his hands in his trouser pockets and one felt that the devil himselfcouldnrsquot shift him (Brecht on Theatre p 3)

oliver double and michael wilson

54

6 Frank and Tilly Wedekind in Earth Spirit

Cambridge Collections Online copy Cambridge University Press 2007use available at httpswwwcambridgeorgcoreterms httpsdoiorg101017CCOL0521857090003Downloaded from httpswwwcambridgeorgcore Open University Libraryy on 13 Jan 2017 at 103142 subject to the Cambridge Core terms of

As Brecht noted Wedekind acted in lsquoa style which he had developed incabaretrsquo32 The characterisation may have been shoddy but there wascharisma and vitality and crucially the performerrsquos own personality was onshow

The idea that the actor should be visible in the role is a cornerstone ofBrechtrsquos theatre and the work of cabaret performers in general and Wedekindin particular seems to be the origin of this Perhaps to help them make theirpersonalities more visible on stage Brecht lsquoset out to give his actors as muchfame as possible in their own eyesrsquo in spite of the fact that they lacked lsquorealfamersquo With this in mind he wrote a poem to Carola Neher encouraging herto wash every morning like a famous person The result of this kind ofencouragement was that although his actors were only lsquoreasonably famousrsquothey lsquocame before the audience on the stage as if they were a great deal moresorsquo33 Perhaps the best example Brecht gave of the actorrsquos personality beingvisible onstage was Charles Laughton as Galileo lsquo[T]he actor appearsonstage in a double role the showman Laughton does not disappear inthe Galileo whom he is showing Laughton is actually there standing onstage and showing us what he imagines Galileo to have beenrsquo (Brecht onTheatre p 194)

Physical presence

Because forms like cabaret involve performers presenting themselves as per-sonalities this places a greater emphasis on their own particular physicalityUnlike actors who use costume and make-up to represent somebody else thecabaret performer tends to represent him- or herself As a result face hair-style voice turn of phrase body shape stance and mannerisms all becomean important part of the texture of the act and in some indefinable way con-tribute to those slippery qualities of presence and charisma This is some-thing that Brecht seemed to grasp instinctively His accounts of Wedekindrsquosperformances are full of physical description mentioning his lsquospecial walkrsquohis lsquosharp-cut bronze skull slightly tilted and thrust forwardrsquo and his lsquoclose-cropped red hairrsquo It is implicit in the way that he mentions these that it wasthe special walk and the tilt of the skull that allowed him to silence thelecture room full of noisy students

Performersrsquo exploitation of their particular physical qualities was some-thing that Brecht admired in the actors he worked with He even wrote apoem about Charles Laughtonrsquos belly describing it as being lsquobuilt of foodswhich heAt his leisure had selected for his entertainmentrsquo and praising theactor for performing his belly lsquolike a poemrsquo34 Some cabaret acts placed aneven greater emphasis on physicality particularly dancers like Valeska Gert

Brecht and cabaret

55

Cambridge Collections Online copy Cambridge University Press 2007use available at httpswwwcambridgeorgcoreterms httpsdoiorg101017CCOL0521857090003Downloaded from httpswwwcambridgeorgcore Open University Libraryy on 13 Jan 2017 at 103142 subject to the Cambridge Core terms of

Brecht was a great admirer of Gertrsquos abstract expressive form of dance andinvited her to appear with him in Die rote Zibebe Here she danced a piececalled Canaille in which she wore long black stockings pink garters andhigh-heeled shoes to represent lsquoan ultra-refined whorersquo After a series of hipwiggles jerks and spasms she physically showed the excitement ebbingaway to be replaced by disgust and disdain as if to say lsquoWhatrsquos been hap-pening to me Irsquove been exploited My bodyrsquos been abused because I needmoneyrsquo She later described the piece using Brechtian terminology lsquoI wasdancing coitus but I ldquoalienatedrdquo it as people say nowadaysrsquo35 It is not hardto see the connection between this kind of act and Brechtrsquos notion of Gestusthe physical gesture which reveals a deeper social truth

Demolishing the fourth wall

Another feature of cabaret performance that appealed to Brecht was that itis based very much in the here and now Whereas fourth-wall theatre is basedon the idea that we are seeing events from another place and time cabaretnever loses sight of the present moment and the particular venue in which ittakes place Cabaret performers were happy to improvise and break out ofscripted material to chat with the audience Joachim Ringelnatz recalled howKathi Kobus who ran and compegravered Munichrsquos Simplicissimus cabaret

oliver double and michael wilson

56

7 Valeska Gert performing Canaille

Cambridge Collections Online copy Cambridge University Press 2007use available at httpswwwcambridgeorgcoreterms httpsdoiorg101017CCOL0521857090003Downloaded from httpswwwcambridgeorgcore Open University Libraryy on 13 Jan 2017 at 103142 subject to the Cambridge Core terms of

would break out of a poem to say to a waitress lsquoThe gent wants to payrsquo orto a customer lsquoCome on in therersquos still a seat over herersquo36 Brecht embracedthis kind of approach to performing writing in The Messingkauf DialogueslsquoSpoiling the illusion moreover was something the Augsburger judgedleniently He was against illusion On his stage there were private jokesimprovisations and extemporizations such as would have been unthinkablein the old theatrersquo (p 71)

Direct address was prevalent in cabaret particularly in the case of the con-feacuterenciers throwing out barbed topical gags as well as introducing the actsBrecht liked this kind of direct communication between performer and audi-ence The theatrically conservative lsquoActorrsquo character in The MessingkaufDialogues reacts with horror at the idea of direct address saying lsquoThatrsquosofficial is it that from now on we can look down at you and even talk toyoursquo The wise lsquoPhilosopherrsquo responds lsquoOf course Any time it furthers thedemonstrationrsquo (p 52) An example of this furthering of the demonstrationcan be found in Man is Man where the actor playing Widow Begbick turnsto the audience and explains lsquoTonight you are going to see a man reassem-bled like a car Herr Bertolt Brecht hopes yoursquoll feel the ground on whichyou standSlither between your toes like shifting sandrsquo37

But Brechtrsquos desire to lsquodemolish the fourth wallrsquo38 involved more than justchanging the way the actors connected with the audience he also wanted tochange the nature of the audience itself He wrote about conventionaltheatre audiences in luxuriantly scathing terms

Looking about us we see somewhat motionless figures in a peculiar conditionthey seem strenuously to be tensing all their muscles except where these areflabby and exhausted They scarcely communicate with each other their rela-tions are those of a lot of sleepers True their eyes are open but they starerather than see just as they listen rather than hear They look as if in a trance

(Brecht on Theatre p 187)

In stark contrast cabaret audiences were lively and active Trude Hesterbergpointed out lsquoThe precise effect a cabaret song may have is never to be pre-dicted under any circumstances it depends entirely upon the audiencersquo39

This is crucial the audiencersquos response was central to the success or failureof an item on a cabaret bill and their regular participation in the form oflaughter applause and heckling put them in a much more powerful positionthan in straight theatre Indeed the unruliness of cabaret audiences was par-odied in the satirical magazine Simplicissimus which printed advice forpotential punters such as lsquoSit down haphazardly and noisilyrsquo lsquoRead themenu and wine list loudly and noisily to your companionrsquo and lsquoPlace yourloud interruptions exactly where they donrsquot fitrsquo40 Perhaps the most extreme

Brecht and cabaret

57

Cambridge Collections Online copy Cambridge University Press 2007use available at httpswwwcambridgeorgcoreterms httpsdoiorg101017CCOL0521857090003Downloaded from httpswwwcambridgeorgcore Open University Libraryy on 13 Jan 2017 at 103142 subject to the Cambridge Core terms of

example of audience power is Erwin Lowinskyrsquos Kabarett der Namenlosenwhich opened in Berlin in 1926 Here unsuspecting amateurs were offeredthe big chance of being able to perform before a public audience only to beinsulted by Lowinsky as confeacuterencier and heckled jeered and laughed offthe stage by the audience

When Brecht experienced the worst effects of the power of cabaret audi-ences at the Wilde Buumlhne his reaction to the near-riot he had provoked wassignificant Hesterberg remembered lsquoQuietly amiably young Brecht askedme why I had rung down the curtain I said ldquoDidnrsquot you hear what wasgoing on out thererdquo And Brecht simply replied ldquoSo whatrdquo rsquo41 Lacking thecrestfallen attitude which such an ego-crushing experience would usuallyinflict on a performer the young playwright evidently saw this kind of con-frontation as a legitimate part of the whole experience Certainly it waspreferable to the stupefied trance of the straight theatre Brecht wanted anaudience like Valentinrsquos where people ate drank and smoked as theywatched He fantasised about stirring up the audiences for his plays by hiringtwo clowns to pretend to be spectators bandying opinions about other audi-ence members making comments about the play and placing bets on itsoutcome

It has been pointed out that Brechtrsquos enthusiasm for performers likeWedekind who enjoyed an intense rapport with his audience based on hislsquopersonal magicrsquo might seem at odds with his ideas about distancing theaudience from the action on the stage42 However there is no contradictionBrecht was against theatrical illusion and a closeness based on empathywhere audiences would share the emotions of the characters The closenessin cabaret was different an encounter between performer and audiencewhere each played an active role The performerrsquos energy and charismamight hold an audience rapt but nobody lost sight of the fact that they wereparticipating in an entertainment event and the audience had the power tomake its judgement known in the form of laughter and applause Brecht hadno problem with this kind of direct rapport and he explicitly argued that lsquoatheatre which makes no contact with the public is a nonsensersquo (Brecht onTheatre p 7)

He was not the only one who realised the subversive potential of this kindof close performerndashaudience relationship There were also significant caseswhere it aroused the suspicions of the authorities In the early 1920s Cellyde Reidt was fined for obscenity when a complaint was made about thenudity in her cabaret This nudity was deemed inartistic and dangerousspecifically because the audience lsquofinds itself in almost immediate contactwith the performersrsquo43 Perhaps more significantly throughout the 1930s theNazi government became increasingly angry about the satirical quips which

oliver double and michael wilson

58

Cambridge Collections Online copy Cambridge University Press 2007use available at httpswwwcambridgeorgcoreterms httpsdoiorg101017CCOL0521857090003Downloaded from httpswwwcambridgeorgcore Open University Libraryy on 13 Jan 2017 at 103142 subject to the Cambridge Core terms of

cabaret confeacuterenciers were making at its expense and it made a numberof interventions aimed at censoring their activities By 1941 Goebbelsrsquospatience was exhausted and he issued an order which banned not onlysuch quips but the very role of the confeacuterencier lsquoAny and every so-calledconfeacuterencier performance or commentary is immediately and fundamentallyforbidden for the entire publicrsquo44 Direct address it seems was seen asdangerous in its own right

Pleasure

Brecht was not unique in taking techniques from such popular forms ascabaret Playwrights and intellectuals were drawing inspiration from thiskind of popular theatre as early as the 1880s when Wedekind wrote anessay lsquoZirkusgedankenrsquo on the importance of circus Indeed the Germancabaret tradition itself was created by artists as an attempt to bring refine-ment and higher artistic values to the variety-based theatre which had startedin Britain with the music hall and spread to Germany in the form of VarieacuteteacutesSingspielhallen and Tingeltangel The founders of the Elf Scharfrichter wrotea manifesto in 1900ndash1901 in which they stated their goal of lsquoputting all artsin the service of light entertainment which up to now has been offeredexclusively by low quality vaudevillesrsquo45

As a result cabaret involved a kind of cultural mobility where serious (ifscandalous) playwrights like Wedekind could slum it by performing a turnor popular comedians like Valentin could be elevated by performing along-side Brecht at the Munich Kammerspiele This mingling of high and low artwas not always happy In spite of his success at the Elf ScharfrichterWedekind referred to cabaret as lsquoall this junkrsquo and left the group in 1903when his plays seemed to be gaining more success It was only the need toearn a living which forced him to resume his cabaret career Brecht had nosuch problems because he took a different approach from the pioneers ofGerman cabaret Rather than adopting the form per se he adapted it to hisown medium Instead of becoming a fully fledged cabaret performer he tookits techniques and applied them to conventional theatre This was revolu-tionary and incomprehensible to some Lotte Lenya recalled how lsquowell-known Berlin theatre-prophetsrsquo tried to write off The Threepenny Opera aslsquoneither cabaret nor drama but a bit of eachrsquo46

Drawing from cabaret clearly contributed to Brechtrsquos political agenda fortheatre providing models for Gestus and the Verfremdungseffekt butperhaps more importantly it allowed him to declare his aesthetic preferencesOne of the things Brecht loathed about the theatre of emotion and empathywas that it did not contain lsquofive pennyworth of funrsquo (Brecht on Theatre

Brecht and cabaret

59

Cambridge Collections Online copy Cambridge University Press 2007use available at httpswwwcambridgeorgcoreterms httpsdoiorg101017CCOL0521857090003Downloaded from httpswwwcambridgeorgcore Open University Libraryy on 13 Jan 2017 at 103142 subject to the Cambridge Core terms of

p 7) By contrast cabaret with its smoky atmosphere its lively satiricalsongs its evocation of sexuality its topical jokes and above all its closerapport between energetic performers and noisy powerful audiences hadfun in abundance In bringing these qualities to theatre he was fulfilling itsfundamental purpose lsquoFrom the first it has been the theatrersquos business toentertain peoplersquo This was he believed even more important than instruc-tion because lsquonothing needs less justification than pleasurersquo (Brecht onTheatre pp 180ndash81)

NOTES

1 Walter Benjamin Understanding Brecht p 1152 Brecht The Messingkauf Dialogues p 693 Ibid p 764 The exact time of their first meeting is uncertain but it can be safely assumed that

this occurred not long after Brechtrsquos arrival in Munich as a student in October1917 since by 1919 Brecht and Valentin were sufficiently close for Brecht to beperforming as a lsquoclarinettistrsquo in Valentinrsquos Oktoberfestbude (see Klaus VoumllkerBrecht A Biography p 36)

5 See Klaus Budzinski Das Kabarett (ECON Taschenbuch Duumlsseldorf 1985)p 32

6 Brecht Diaries 1920ndash1922 pp 152ndash537 Hesterberg quoted in Klaus Budzinski Pfeffer ins Getriebe Ein Streifzug durch

100 Jahre Kabarett (Wilhelm Heine Munich 1982) p 1338 See Budzinski Pfeffer ins Getriebe p 134 and J M Ritchie lsquoBrecht and

Cabaretrsquo in Brecht in Perspective ed Bartram and Waine pp 160ndash749 Reinhard Hippen lsquoSich fuumlgen ndash heiszligt luumlgenrsquo ndash 80 Jahre deutsches Kabarett

(Druckhaus Schmidt und Boumldige Mainz 1981) p 3010 Voumllker Brecht A Biography p 3611 Arguably the play also anticipates the drunken engagement party scene in the film

Kuhle Wampe12 Hanns Otto Muumlnsterer The Young Brecht p 10613 Voumllker Brecht A Biography p 6114 Literally lsquoThe Christmas Tree Boardrsquo However lsquoBrettlrsquo is also used idiomatically

to mean lsquoa stagersquo and is particularly associated with cabaret and popular theatreforms

15 Budzinski Das Kabarett p 26016 W Stuart McDowell lsquoActors on Brecht The Munich Yearsrsquo in Brecht

Sourcebook ed Carol Martin and Henry Bial p 7717 Ibid p 7618 Brecht Collected Plays I 1918ndash23 p x19 Denis Calandra lsquoKarl Valentin and Bertolt Brechtrsquo in The Drama Review 18

(March 1974) p 9120 lsquoThe Aquariumrsquo transl Michael Wilson and Oliver Double New Theatre

Quarterly 79 (August 2004) p 20721 Translation by the authors22 Muumlnsterer The Young Brecht p 105

oliver double and michael wilson

60

Cambridge Collections Online copy Cambridge University Press 2007use available at httpswwwcambridgeorgcoreterms httpsdoiorg101017CCOL0521857090003Downloaded from httpswwwcambridgeorgcore Open University Libraryy on 13 Jan 2017 at 103142 subject to the Cambridge Core terms of

23 Senelick Cabaret Performance Volume II p 8224 Bertolt Brecht Schriften zum Theater V p 161 25 Ronald Hayman Brecht A Biography p 1926 Martin Esslin Brecht A Choice of Evils p 1127 Senelick Cabaret Performance Volume II pp 82ndash3 Note that the central char-

acter in Brechtrsquos lsquoApfelboumlckrsquo is actually called Jakob not Josef28 Muumlnsterer The Young Brecht p 2429 Brecht Letters 1913ndash1956 p 3730 Muumlnsterer The Young Brecht p 2331 See Hayman Brecht A Biography p 29 and Sol Gittleman Frank Wedekind

(Twayne New York 1969) p 138 32 The Messingkauf Dialogues p 6933 Ibid p 70 The poem he wrote for Neher is lsquoAdvice to the actress CNrsquo34 Brecht Poems 1913ndash1956 p 39335 Senelick Cabaret Performance Volume II pp 15ndash1636 Senelick Cabaret Performance Volume I p 12137 Brecht Man equals Man p 3838 The Messingkauf Dialogues p 5239 Senelick Cabaret Performance Volume II p 8240 Lisa Appignanesi Cabaret p 5541 Senelick Cabaret Performance Volume II p 8342 See Margaret Eddershaw Performing Brecht p 9 for example43 Peter Jelavich Berlin Cabaret p 16044 Senelick Cabaret Performance Volume II p 28245 Peter Jelavich Munich and Theatrical Modernism Politics Playwriting and

Performance 1890ndash1914 (Harvard University Press Cambridge Mass 1985)p 151

46 Hubert Witt (ed) Brecht As They Knew Him p 61

Brecht and cabaret

61

Cambridge Collections Online copy Cambridge University Press 2007use available at httpswwwcambridgeorgcoreterms httpsdoiorg101017CCOL0521857090003Downloaded from httpswwwcambridgeorgcore Open University Libraryy on 13 Jan 2017 at 103142 subject to the Cambridge Core terms of

Cambridge Collections Online copy Cambridge University Press 2007use available at httpswwwcambridgeorgcoreterms httpsdoiorg101017CCOL0521857090003Downloaded from httpswwwcambridgeorgcore Open University Libraryy on 13 Jan 2017 at 103142 subject to the Cambridge Core terms of